Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/84



ND the cold days of hard work kept going by, and the City Beautiful grew, and huddled close together in the straw the children planned and dreamed, and read and re-read the Pilgrim's Progress, following Christian step by step. And Aunt Matilda became busier every day it seemed, and did not remember that they were alive, except when she saw them. And nobody guessed, and nobody knew.

Days so quickly grew to weeks, and weeks slip by so easily until they are months, and at last there came a time when Meg, going out in the morning, felt a softer air, and stopped a moment by a bare tree to breathe it in and feel its lovely touch upon her cheek. She turned her face upward with a half-involuntary movement, and found herself looking at such a limitless vault of tender blueness, that her heart gave a quick throb, and seemed to spring up to